Art and culture exposition at Sardar Patel Vidyalaya

Sardar Patel Vidyalaya invited schools of Delhi to participate in an annual folk festival Saanjhi on 7 December 2018. The event was not a competition but a generous celebration of colour, joy, music, dance, literature and culture of the diverse communities of India. The event offered a forum for collaborative learning alongside infotainment.

The gifted young artists of The Indian School participated in all the three events- storytelling for class IV and V, a folk art workshop for class VI to XI and the folk music exposition for classes VI to XI. The participants were accompanied by their music teachers -Mr. Adhir Das, Mr. Gopinath Swain, Mr. Sidharth Dalbehra and Ms. Shuchismita Chatterjee.

The programme commenced with a lively and captivating musical story narrative by noted folk artist Ms. Shailaja Rajput and her group.

The students of classes IV and V then enacted a folk tale from Assam, depicting a story of how a farmer and his wife manage to protect their land from the evil eyes of the landlord. The young cast included Shraddha Saraswati (IV), Priyanshi Sharma (IV), Samiya Khurana (IV), Hargun (IV), Bhoomika Lohia (V), Niyati Vohra (V), Mohini Kapoor (V) and Utkarsh Dafoti (V).

Meanwhile, a team of six students of classes VI X participated in the folk art and craft. The participants had carried along some samples of Gond folk art paintings done by students, to showcase at the event. The host school made the event enjoyable by providing every student with an opportunity to choose any one art form Madhubani, Worli, Patachitra, Gond, etcetera and get a chance to learn the same from the experts. Students who showed fruitful participation in this event were Amay Jindal (VI), Apoorva Garg (VII), Dhruv (VII), Sharanya Mushran (IX), Devyani Dhoundiyal (XI) and Khushi Shukla (XI).

In the folk music exposition, our able dancers presented a rhythmic Bihu song, Au kumoliya of Assam, depicting a conversation between girls and boys in the spring festival (Rongali Bihu). The audience was mesmerised by the foot tapping and energetic performance of the singers and dancers. The vivacious singing of Kumar Ritovash (VII), Kavya Shrotriya (VIII), Anushka Saxena (IX), Mohammad Rafae Aziz (IX), Samiksha Nair (IX), Sarthak Malhotra (IX), Dhriti Chatterjee (XI) provided rhythm for the spirited dancing ensemble of Tanisha Mehendiratta (VI), Ananya Sundresan (VIII), Meenakshi Manoj (VIII), Saransh Jha (VIII), Ritika Thandani (VIII) and Devyanshi Agarwal (VIII). The music was provided by the team of accompanying teachers-Mr. Adhir Das on the tabla, Mr. Gopinath Swain on the violin, Mr. Siddharth Dalbehra on the flute and Kumar Ritovash (VII) on harmonium.

All our performances were highly appreciated by the guest artists present on the occasion. It was a great learning experience for both the students and their teachers.

Ms. Shuchismita Chatterjee.